WBC Day Two

I woke up bright and early for more Hannibal, with only the slightest grogginess after the previous day's marathon of 3 am wakeup, 6 hours driving, and 6 hours of Hannibal. After I post this entry, I'm going straight to bed and luckily nothing is happening for me in the 9 am hour tomorrow, so I can catch up a little bit on sleep.

Round 3: Tim Miller
For the 5th time in a row at WBC, I was Carthage - Tim bid 1 to be Rome, so I was happy to take Carthage once again. The details of this game are a little blurry right now, but once again Hannibal got stuck in northern Italy, eventually killed, but Mago was again able to conquer Corsica and hold onto it. Yet another 9-9 tie for the Carthage madmen...

Round 4: Michael Sosa
I knew I had met Michael before, but neither of us could remember exactly what we had played together a few years ago. He accepted my starting bid of 1 for Carthage, so the streak grew to 6. This time, Hannibal was finally able to make a lot of progress, smashing Romans and taking Samnium. On turn 3, I had a tough call to make. I had the Carthage reinforcement card that gave 2 troops if you were in Lucania, so I decided to make a break for it after using Diplomacy to flip one of the other spaces there to have a retreat path if I lost a combat. Hannibal was able to hold on to Lucania and Apulia until at least turn 7 or so, holding off Scipio Africanus in a number of combats on turn 6. I got to play an event I had never played before - the Adriatic Pirates! They got Mago with 3 extra troops to help Hannibal hold on longer, but eventually I had to sail the big guy back to Spain. Overall it bought me enough time to once again control Corsica and win a 9-9 tie.

Round 5: Henry Rice
Henry won the bidding roll and bid 0 for Carthage, I bid 1, and he took them for 2 - the streak was over! However, after playing four rounds of Carthage in a row, I was worried about being out of sync with the Roman side of things. I held Hannibal to the first two spots in Samnium, but I decided to use Major Campaigns on two different turns to try to attrition Hannibal away, figuring I was going to have a better chance to make battles last longer if I was attacking rather than defending. I'm still not sure if this is worth it, or a good way to lose a lot of troops, since I had Hannibal well controlled. Eventually I did back him up back in Gallia Cisalpina, and then he fled just as Scipio got on the scene. Henry did something pretty interesting during all of this. During one of his Campaign card moves, he moved H. Gisgo into the right most space in Liguria - basically meaning I would have to find some time to deal with him or he might come out at the end of the game to flip some PCs in Italy. In turn 8, Henry moved Hasdrubal back into northern Italy to keep me tied up, even though I was winning with Marcellus in Corsica and P. Scipio in Sicily. Near the end of the turn he dropped Truce to make me not able to deal with Hasdrubal or flip a PC that P. Scipio was sitting on in Sicily (with another next to him). I had Celtiberia Revolts and decided to not use it as the event and make him lose one more PC during the Political Phase, thus keeping the Truce around.

On turn 9, I discovered yet another example of the dislike part of my feelings about Hannibal. I've been playing Hannibal for 3-4 years now and have probably played 50 times. You would think I would know all of the rules, but nope! Apparently Truce causes Naval Combat to not occur, so Henry was able to sail Hannibal with 10 troops on turn 9 with no risk.

Anyway, it was all for naught because during turn 9, Henry used a Major Campaign to move Hannibal to Sicily, but that wasn't it. He hit me with Philip of Macedon's alliance next, and picked out my only 3-card, a Major Campaign. I finished off Hasdrubal, and raced Scipio A. south as quickly as I could... only to be hit by Messenger Intercepted! Unbelievably, Henry didn't even need to use Hannibal to take over Sicily. With him remaining cards after I had played my last one, he was able to move H. Gisgo from New Carthage all the way by land to Gallia Cisalpina and take that province back.

A fun, interesting day, but unfortunately it ended with disappointment. Winning that last round would have meant probably being in top 6 and getting a plaque... and I came so close! Granted, this was the best I've done in a CDG.

All three of my opponents were great - polite, not too fast or slow in their play, gracious in victory or defeat, and generally fun to play against. The people at the WBC are a big factor as to why it's so fun!

Chris

WBC Day One

A great start to this year's World Boardgaming Championships!

Bronwen and I woke up at 3 am to begin the trek to Lancaster PA, and got out the door around 4:30. We made quick progress as Bronwen caught up on sleep and I listened to wargaming podcasts (Point 2 Point and The Messy Game Room... check them out!). We had a nice, quick lunch at Taco Bell and met up with some friends at the Lancaster Host.

Today's pre-convention event: Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage!

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Hannibal. It's more like a really like-sometimes dislike relationship. I'm good enough to have a chance to win against most of the players I've come across at WBC, but not good enough to necessarily win consistently. I've gone pretty much 50% wins in the few years I've been playing the event... this is my third year, and I believe I went 2-2 my first year, then 1-1 last year and dropped out to play Paths of Glory. I enjoy playing the game, but at some point around a year and a half ago, my conception of the game changed and I don't quite take it as seriously. Mostly it's the wild swings that can happen from a timely Double Envelopment or Messenger Intercepted, but also the way the game sometimes settles into a stalement, or the way Carthage can win with a lucky Syracuse draw on turn 9. All of that said, once I made that mental adjustment to the chaos of the game, I'm actually enjoying the game more. It's like I have built up a resilience to the frustrations the game can provide, and can take it for what it is, without getting annoyed when I lose.

Round 1: Bill Banks. Bill was a great opponent - he was nice, easygoing, and knew Hannibal well, so the play was smooth and the time flew by. I won the dice-off to bid 2 PCs for Carthage and he let me have it. Hannibal made it as far as Mutina, but got whittled down so had to retreat back home. Bill considered following over the Alps to go get him, but decided against it. With a timely Messenger Intercepted and Diplomacy, I was able to move Mago over to Corsica-Sardinia while Bill was out of cards, and early in the following turn sail Hasdrubal there with more troops while Hannibal held down Spain. I used a ton of 3-cards to buy more troops, which is something I have found myself doing more and more as Carthage as I gain more experience with the game. I wonder if that's the right thinking... Anyway, Bill tried a few attacks but I was able to fend them off for a 9-9 tie, which Carthage wins.

After the game, I relaxed, wandered, and finally went to the nearby Asian Bistro with a friend from home, Andy Latto. We had a great conversation about games, poker, and statistics (such as in WBC favorite Can't Stop), and the food was solid - I had a nice, simple chicken stir fry. Fueled up, I was ready for round 2!

Round 2: Andy Latto. I'm not really surprised by this kind of thing any more. If you play enough tournaments, you are bound to play people you know. I was happy to know that one of us would be 2-0 going into tomorrow. It was kind of funny to have this happen since one of the things we talked about during dinner was our bidding strategy for the start of the game. Andy won the die roll and bid 1 for Carthage, so I bumped it to 2 and was once again moving Hannibal over the Alps. This time, however, Hannibal got stopped at the gates to Italy by a Roman superstack. Hannibal's stack was too big for them to take on as well, so a stalemate developed while Andy just waited Hannibal out. I was able to once again get Mago into Corsica, and even did an end of turn Sicily Revolts and led the turn off with a 3 card to take that province (temporarily). Andy is a tough game player though, and he played very well - not rushing into anything too risky until he had Scipio Africanus. At that point Andy had 47 troops on the board due to the build-up, and my stacks all had 13-16.

The amazing part of the game was that we had FOUR 10-round battles between Hannibal and Scipio on turn 6, one more on turn 7, and finally Andy went for the kill with a Campaign... the last one Scipio got Hannibal in an 8 rounder to have a significant drop in force, then came in with P. Scipio to finish off the big man. It was a hard decision the play before that as to whether to run away with Hannibal yet. He had a stack of 11 or 12 troops and I had no way of knowing Andy had a Campaign card.

The other amazing aspect to this game was that I drew Messenger Intercepted FOUR times, including turn 9 during which I plucked Philip of Macedon from his hand, allowing me to send Hasdrubal with 10 troops safely to back up Mago when Scipio A. moved there after finishing up with the tribes in the north. The ending was extremely close, but unfortunately sneaky Varro had enough Ops points left to move into Northern Spain and take four spots to win by 10-8 province count. We debated my gamble to attack Corsica with my last 3 card before waiting for Andy to be out of cards, but if I waited, he would finish off Mago and flip the PCs, making the sailing attempt significantly more risky, not to mention not having Mago's few remaining troops around. Since I rolled exactly 1 less than sinking, I would have sunk on the way and lost either way.

It's time for bed, and I think this year I'm not going to switch the Paths of Glory. I just don't know enough people who play it regularly to ever be truly competitive at the game, and it's very draining to play even a second round of it, much less three. So for tomorrow, I'll be playing round 3 of Hannibal. I'm thinking that if I win, I will keep going on the off chance I can get to 4-1, but if I lose, I might give serious consideration to playing Through the Ages. I rate TTA much lower than most of my friends, as well as the BoardGameGeek rankings, so I feel like I need to play it more and give it a more thorough chance. Two back-to-back round of WBC play would go a long way towards that!

Chris